Monday, October 5, 2015

The Voices by F. R. Tallis

Title: The VoicesAuthor: F. R. TallisPublished: May 2014, Pan MacMillanPages: 400Summary: Once you've heard them, you'll never forget them ...In the scorching summer of 1976 - the hottest since records began - Christopher Norton, his wife Laura and their young daughter Faye settle into their new home in north London. The faded glory of the Victorian house is the perfect place for Norton, a composer of film soundtracks, to build a recording studio of his own. But soon in the long, oppressively hot nights, Laura begins to hear something through the crackle of the baby monitor. First, a knocking sound. Then come the voices ... (Taken from Goodreads)Thoughts: As much as I love the horror genre, I haven't really read many horror novels so I am working on remedying that. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from The Voices, but from its description it sounded like it could be a good scary novel.The Voices starts off feeling kind of cliche and there are a couple of the typical tropes that I am sick of encountering so I felt like that was a bit annoying to be honest. I felt like the author was trying to put personality into some of the characters by introducing their interests but I felt like the ideas were half formed and so one character in particular was sneaking off and I felt like what that character was doing was half established.While I was recommended this book as a creepy read, I have to say that so little happened to the point where I felt like the creepy element just wasn't creepy. It was just there and it felt like it was just another part of Christopher's life and that there was nothing sinister about it.The ending was quite good. I found that it was interesting and it was a little creepy. It also gave some closure but also left the reader guessing a little, which I quite enjoyed. I have to say though, I felt like very little happened up until about the last 70 or so pages and so I had absolutely no idea how the book was going to end.Overall, I thought that The Voices was an interesting book, but at the same time, I also felt like hardly anything happened. I didn't really find it spooky at all so I think I was a little disappointed. I think that if the book had more of the creepy things happening and less about the characters lives outside of the main story, I would have enjoyed it a bit more.